Hide
by Smalltownethics
Summary: Throughout her life there's always been one thing Skye did best, hide. Aka the five times Skye encounters but doesn't meet Grant and the one time history repeats itself. Sequel to Run.


**Summary:**

Skye's always been in hiding it seems. She's good at it. Or the five times Skye thinks about and/or almost meets Grant and the one time history repeats itself.

**Notes:**

AN: This takes place after Run and spans a couple of years, it will allude to my speculation on the events of Avengers Age of Ultron as well as the potential I see of what tact we may see Civil War take in respect to the Agents of Shield as well as the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Disclaimer: I have never read any of the Civil War comics my speculation and hypothesis is taken from speculation done by others as well as brief summaries found on Wikipedia in regards to Civil War events and who sides with who.

**Work Text:**

**Hide (AKA The 5 times Skye thinks of and/or almost meets Grant and the one time they meet face to face)**

(The First Time)

**Hiding** seemed to be something she did a lot. Either someone was hiding her or she was literally hiding, but it seemed that at every juncture of her life she was in hiding. This was new though, instead of hiding from some nameless, faceless threats she was hiding from people she knew, people she cared about but no longer trusted, people she believed, _had to believe otherwise it would drive her mad,_cared for her as well.

Her plan was to go to ground as soon as possible, perhaps find her father and get help for her developing abilities, that plan was hampered by SHIELD's continual dodging of her steps. It took her a week to find the tracker in her necklace, less than an hour to hack it and block it. She spend the next day crying as another piece of her trust, in SHIELD generally, Coulson and May specifically, _the necklace had been a gift_, break. The next day she went for a run and formulated a plan.

Later she'll think it's because she was too deep in plots to hear the scuffle until she was practically on top of it, even later she'll berate herself for allowing herself to lose track of her surroundings both of her SO's taught her better than that. A quick glance around allows her to assess the situation, 6 SHIELD agents and one civilian, a better look allows her to reassess civilian to former SHEILD/HYDRA agent Grant Ward.

_Afterward she'll think back on this moment and wonder if she'd been motivated by her own anger towards SHIELD or her guilt over her own actions towards Grant._

She finds herself pulling out her phone, Grant likely can handle this situation but it's unlikely the agents are here alone back up in coming and Grant appears to be on his own. The hack of the agent's ear pieces is simple and fast, even simpler is the hack of the agents GPS signals. It's almost childs play to her a brief call back to simpler times as she sends a high pitched shriek through the agents earpieces causing them all to pull away from Grant in pain and allowing him to gain the upper hand. A quick glance up from her phone finds Grant finishing off the last of the agents, she nods to herself and leaves at a quick pace.

_Despite a desperate urge she doesn't turn around. A part of her wants to desperately to throw herself at him, to have him hold her and make the world go away. She doesn't deserve that, she doesn't deserve him and the last thing she wants is to hurt him again. A part of her a dark and despairing part of her is terrified that he'd reject her, that hate instead of caring will darken his dark eyes, or even worse that he'd help her out of some misguided emotion of pity._

Her resolve was a fragile thing so she didn't risk so much as a glance back, so afraid she is that she'll break and run back to him.

_Had she glanced back she would have seen Grant look up and see her retreating back, the curiosity at the fallen agents change to shock, seen the abortive step he took in her direction before he shook his head and fled in the opposite direction, but she never turned and so never saw any of it._

**(The Second Time)**

She spent the next three months laying a variety of false trail for SHIELD to follow as well as several back up identities for herself.

_Several are made up for Grant as well and left in some of his drop sites, a small sop to her conscience, it doesn't help but if she didn't do anything to try to make it up to him her guilt would be even worse._

After which she decides to track down her father. She finds him in Mexico running what is basically a free health clinic out of an abandoned warehouse. There are no _I told you so's_, no recriminations of any sorts he simply holds her and lets her cry herself out. Afterwards he doesn't bring up SHIELD, what happened in Puerto Rico, he doesn't ask what she's become and the vise that had been steadily tightening around her heard since the teams reaction to her abilities starts to ease.

_He figures it out fast enough after she has a night mare that causes her to shake the warehouse. He doesn't ask for blood or what the limits of her abilities are he gives her meditation exercises and says that maybe they can work on control together._

He puts her to work sorting materials and helping him in the clinic, he teaches her to set bones and sew cuts. When she loses control which is often in the first few weeks he's quick to smooth things over with the locals, she doesn't get lectures about control or working harder at meditation he simply hands her a blank journal and tells her that bottling up her emotions won't help and if she doesn't feel comfortable talking to him then maybe writing things out will help. It seems overly simplistic, meditation and writing in journals, but surprisingly enough it helps. Her nightmares lessen, they don't disappear completely but they lessen, as do the tremors and quakes when she's frustrated and emotional. When the nightmares do occur it means that she stays up late pouring out the thoughts into her journal, which is how she's awake when she hears the crashing going on down the hall.

She's out the door gun drawn before it really dawns on her how alert she has been for people to come after her here. Her feet are light on the floor as she makes no noise padding down the hall to the room where the noise is originating from. She steadies herself, inhaling a deep breath and readying herself for the possible confrontation when _**his**_ voice cursing drives the very air from her lungs.

_Her father's laughter and genial scolding of Grant for his language causes a bittersweet smile to cross her lips._

The banter back and forth speaks to a friendship or at least a kinship and a small pang of jealousy spears through her heart at the easy camaraderie she can hear existing between the pair. A shake of her head allows her to dispel the feeling she has no right to feel from her mind if not her heart, her life is a mess right now, she doesn't know where she stands with Grant and her father still calls her Daisy more often than not.

_Things get awkward real fast whenever foster care, the nuns or the orphanage comes up in conversation._

Cal exits the room and is brought up short at the sight of her leaning against the wall outside of the door. She shakes her head when she sees him open his mouth to greet her not wanting Grant to be alerted to her presence. Another smile crossed her lips this one not as bitter as she stretched up on her toes to brush a light kiss along her father's cheek before turning and heading back to her room.

**(Third Time)**

The thing is even while in hiding she can't just do nothing. Her abilities, _curse or gift the jury is still out,_ still a bit beyond her control she still has her own knowledge and experience with SHIELD not to mention her hacking expertise and she wants to help others. Really help others, those like her who need help to escape from SHIELD or other like agencies who might try to use them.

_A part of her keeps waiting for a sign that SHIELD has changed that her friends __family__ are changing SHIELD for the better._

Her father loves the idea of helping others like her like her mother, and slowly but surely and underground network grows helping gifteds escape those who would use their abilities. Skye erases and creates new identities all the while compiling a coded network of files, just in case they need to all go off the grid and use their own doctors and such.

_She hopes they can continue to coexist but a part of her fears as the number of people they help grows that one day soon the gifted will be forced to create an underground community._

Being a thorn in the side of several agencies is going to make you an enemy of said agencies. Skye had several alerts and fail safes in place to help warn them in case of attack, but even the best alert and fail safe would only buy them so much time.

_Not enough time, not nearly enough time._

The attack came from two sources SHIELD and HAMMER descended on the warehouse at the same time. The small group who used the warehouse as permanent headquarters was lucky in the fact that the two groups were as concerned with fighting each other as they were in coming after their group. It buys them more time than the alerts had given them to wipe hard drives and escape.

_Still not enough time_

Skye is on her way out moving fast, she knows she's the last one out it had been planned that way; she was the only one who could erase the hard drives fast. She's half way out when she sees her father fighting with a HAMMER agent distracted enough to not see the SHIELD agent coming. She remembers screaming, her father looking up and her and watching as SHIELD bullets went into both her father and the HAMMER agent dropping them both.

_The roaring in her ears and a red mist clouds her vision._

The next few moments are sketchy, she thinks she might have screamed again as she raced to her father's side sobbing and screaming alternatively.

_The roaring in her ears grows louder._

For the life of her she cannot remember the face of the agent who shot her father and a part of her hopes this is a good thing. _Hate has to end somewhere._ She feels the ground beneath her begin to quake and knows it's enough to send the agent scurrying, _whoever it is has obviously been briefed on her._ Her pain and anger overwhelms her as she sobs into her father's chest the walls crash down and everything fades away.

_It doesn't fade completely she has a vague impression of being carried and rouses enough when dropped onto a soft bed to look into the grave concerned face of Grant Ward. She wants to say something anything, a thank you, I'm sorry, hi, but her strength is gone and the darkness pulls her under._

When she wakes he's gone and she recognizes where she is as one of the safe houses she and her father had organized for gifteds. Grant isn't there but several of the gifteds she has helped in the past are. A part of her wonders if it was wishful thinking on her part that he was there as opposed to reality. Then she remembers her father and her grief is overwhelming and she doesn't think of Grant again.

**(Fourth Time)**

Many things changed for Skye after her father's death, for one she stared going almost exclusively by Daisy, limiting her use of Skye to the internet and with the few one people she still kept in contact with from her old life, everyone else call her Daisy.

_Her father had done everything he could to reunite them and sacrificed, stolen and killed to get her back. He's loved her so much and the one way she could honor him was to use the name he and her mother had given her._

In many ways she had gone back to the beginning again, living off the grid in a van, helping others from her mobile office. It wasn't just her that had changed the world had changed as well. She was currently blending in with a crowd milling about Capitol Hill as the senate debated passing the Superhero Registration act. If the act became law it would make all those who refused to register felons, as well as giving the government accurate lists of Gifted and their addresses so that gifted could be conscripted into fighting wars and battles that they didn't believe in.

_The young naïve Skye would have been heartbroken to learn that the law had been crafted by Director Phil Coulson who had already generously given the government access to SHIELD's gifted registry._

Skye would have been heartbroken upon seeing Coulson's interview and the black and white view he still held of gifteds. Daisy was jaded enough to no longer care what Coulson viewed as good or bad, she had seen enough of the gray between both viewpoints to realize that those who proclaimed good intentions weren't always all they were cracked up to be. That true heroes fought for that one person no one else believed mattered, the one person who was overlooked or forgotten.

_True heroes weren't. They wouldn't call themselves heroes because they wouldn't view themselves as such._

A staffer came out and alerted the crowd that the bill had passed. The mood in the crowd was mixed with some jubilant and others dejected. Skye was disappointed, true but a larger part of her was resigned. She had seen this coming after the disastrous battle with the killer robots, and when push came to shove she knew which side she would fall on. She turned and her eyes met those of a pair of brown eyes across the street.

_For a second time stopped, her breath caught and her heart stopped._

The eyes were filled with wariness, but no hatred or derision. Their eyes stayed locked and she felt her lips part and start to form his name as she took an instinctive step towards him. Movement causes both of them to glance around and catch sight of the SHIELD agents combing through the crowds. Whether they were looking for him or her it didn't really matter. Their eyes met again and she shoots him a wistful smile before turning and disappearing into the crowd.

_Her heart seems to be beating double time because the wariness had faded from his eyes and been replaced by genuine curiosity but the time wasn't right, would it ever be right._

**(Fifth Time)**

Someone was trailing her. The trail was good, unfortunately the all American good looks were easy to spot and pick out so doubling back and pining him against the wall was an easy enough job for the girl who had lived off the grid for the majority of her life and had the benefit of training with two of SHIELD's top specialists.

"Daisy Johnson," the man said not flinching from the gun pointed at his head.

"Who wants to know," Skye said not flinching as a red haired woman materialized next to her aiming a gun at her own head.

"Steve Rogers," the man said giving her a self-conscious grin and shrug.

_Had someone told Mary Sue Poots that the day would come where she would sit across from Captain America having a civil conversation she would have laughed in their faces. Had someone told Skye that she would one day meet Captain America and the Black Widow she likely would have asked what said person was smoking and if they felt inclined to share._

Moving the conversation out of the alley and to a diner where they could speak openly if not privately in public was something Skye would never have imagined happening in her life time. Sitting across from Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov while they discussed Avengers the way some people might have discussed the weather had not even made her top ten of thing to happen to her.

When they told her they wanted her to join their team it was almost straining her self-control not to laugh in their faces. "I have no interest in using my abilities to fight a war that is effectively brother against brother," she told them both simply and effectively. "I don't mind helping those who are escaping the act but to actively fight," her voice drifted off and she shook her head. "No I'm not ready for that I'm not sure I'll ever be ready for that."

Steve sighed but nodded his head allowing her to relax for the first time since she's spotted him tailing her. The conversation turned for Avengers and talk of war to discussion of what amounted to the Underground Railroad she had been operating. They wanted to help, the people she was helping were the reason they were fighting after all. The discussion turned to broadening the network, how to help more people as well as the possibility of forming teams that could act as extraction units to pull gifteds out of hot spots like testing labs.

Steve frowned down at one of the names on the list she'd provided him in regards to people she felt could be trusted to be recruited to help. He tapped Natasha on the shoulder and pointed out a name and she watched at the woman nodded an affirmative to the unspoken question. He sighed then smiled sadly at her, "I'm sorry to have to tell you this but he's HYDRA," Steve said indicating one of the names on her list.

Skye sat back looked at them both up and down before leaning forward again, "And she's Red Room," she stated evenly with a pointed look at Natasha.

The red head tilted her head slightly then smiled softly, "You vouch for him."

"I would trust him with my life," Skye said softly but with as much emphasis as she could. "He," she inclined her head at the list in Steve's hand, "had the best scores in the academy since you walked through their halls. He's saved my life more times than I care to count, lived through hell and somehow is turning his life around. So yes I vouch for him." The pair looked at her, Steve seemingly surprised by the vehemence with which she defended one Grant Ward, Natasha merely eyed her consideringly before both nodded then the little gathering broke up.

**(And the one time)**

_Life runs in circles and love often does as well. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl betrays boy and boy betrays girl. _

In many ways it feels like things have gone back to the beginning. She's Daisy now instead of Skye but she lives off the grid, blogging and podcasting from her van sending out a message of hope to those who live in fear of the government and their long reach.

_Trust is lost, anger and words are exchanged. Boy and girl go their separate ways. Boy and girl grow up; both learn that the world they live in isn't the one they thought it was both have to learn new ways to cope._

Some days Skye wishes she could go back to before, before she knew so much about life, when things were simple. When things were black and white, then she remembers all she lost due to her black and white view. How easily her control was shaken when she held that view point.

_Girl lives on her own and learns she has a gift __curse__, and though it's hard won and comes with tears and heartache she has control now._

She's the voice on the air that gives hope to the hopeless to those in need and down on their luck. She's a secret avenger who supports Captain America and his team of Avengers in their efforts to repeal the Superhero Registration act.

_Boy went his own way and learned independence and his own path, learned to be who he wanted to be and to stand up for his own thoughts and feelings._

She sends out the message nightly letting those in need know there is hope. The van door slides open while she's mid monologue forcing her to cut it off and turn to glare at the person at her door. Her eyes meet the shaded glasses of a tall dark haired man peering into her van. "Hey, what up?"

_In the beginning boy and girl meet and the possibilities are endless_


End file.
